07 MCS serious, nasty sound on acceleration...
Discussion
...when i give it the beans there is sometimes an almighty (seriously loud) clicking stuttering noise and juddering loss of power, which resolves itself when I take my foot off and then on the power again. happens in any gear and at any speed. whats going on? also, and i'm not a stupid man, but i really cannot read my oil dipstick. i have done 6000 miles on the same oil since buying the car from the dealer and the coiled dipstick tells me absolutely nothing. i warm the car through, leave it to stand for 5 mins, take the stick out, wipe it and re-dip. nothing but oil all the way along it. how do i read it? im very worried im damaging my engine, which by the way seems to have developed the death rattle 4 months out of warranty
thanks
thanks
My advice, with regards to the oil level on the dipstick, is buy a litre of the right oil, and see if you can coil the dipstick all the way into it (I don't know if it would fit though). Failing that, even just stick a pen down into the oil bottle. Compare this to how the oil looks on your dipstick when removed from the engine.
I fell into the same trap with my MCS - every time I checked the oil, it looked fine - oily all they way to the max indicator. But as I learned, oily is far different from actually being bathed in oil up to the correct level. The coil lets the oil cling very thick to the dipstick - its unmistakable once you've seen it. Very easy to read the level after that so if you're having difficulty, my guess is you are already pretty low and you are just picking up residual oil from the tube rather than an actual level. I was 2 litres down in the end to my shame, and was getting some serious rasp when accelerating.
I fell into the same trap with my MCS - every time I checked the oil, it looked fine - oily all they way to the max indicator. But as I learned, oily is far different from actually being bathed in oil up to the correct level. The coil lets the oil cling very thick to the dipstick - its unmistakable once you've seen it. Very easy to read the level after that so if you're having difficulty, my guess is you are already pretty low and you are just picking up residual oil from the tube rather than an actual level. I was 2 litres down in the end to my shame, and was getting some serious rasp when accelerating.
sad61t said:
Agreed - the MINI's dipstick is very hard to judge. Unlike other cars where the level has been very clear the MINI's orange plastic lozenge is wet but never shows any clear level.
If anyone has a YouTube video of how read the level, it would be useful.
Actually the orange thing is an improvement over the older R56s - my '57 Cooper S had this awful bendy dipstick which was even harder to read properly. If anyone has a YouTube video of how read the level, it would be useful.
The biggest problem I think is that the dipstick seems to have to take quite a tortuous course down into the engine so the whole thing just comes out with oil stuck to it.
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